Bruins cautiously hopeful entering NHL entry draft.

Thursday

Jun 25, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 25, 2009 at 10:39 PM

It’s almost like the NHL Entry Draft has become a disappointment when a team uses it only as an entry draft. All that trade chatter, all those rumors, every general manager in the league in the same place at the same time – and all Team X did was draft prospects?

How boring is that?

That seems to be the prevailing attitude locally, with the Bruins so far scheduled to pick late (No. 25 in the first round) and infrequently (only five picks over seven rounds) on Friday night and Saturday morning in Montreal. Outside opinion won’t mean much to Boston GM Peter Chiarelli, who’ll rely almost exclusively on his personnel insiders at the draft, but it’s not his intent to make it a boring weekend.

He’s going to the Bell Centre hoping to replace the second-round selection traded to the New York Islanders (with Ben Walter) for Petteri Nokelainen in September, 2007. Chiarelli will also try to satisfy scouts who crave an earlier choice than 25th in the first round.

“I’d like to accomplish a few things” draft-wise, Chiarelli said during a conference call on Tuesday.

“I’d like to get a second-round pick, (but) I wouldn’t be devastated if I didn’t, because we feel there are good players a little later on during the draft … I’ve had a couple of discussions on moving a couple of slots up (in the first round). Our guys have their eyes on this one player that’s higher than where we’re picking, so one of my goals is to at least try to move up. I don’t know if we’ll see that, but we’ll try.”

Naturally, nobody’s going to give high choices away, so if the B’s are serious about moving up or adding selections, they’ll have to trade – which many feel they’ll have to do anyway, given Boston’s somewhat lengthy list of desirable free agents to re-sign and an anticipated problem with the NHL salary cap.

The 2009-10 cap figure hasn’t been announced, but if, as anticipated, it’s relatively close to last season’s $56.7 million, the Bruins are already within $5-$6 million of the limit – probably not enough to re-sign potential unrestricted free agents Phil Kessel, Matt Hunwick and Byron Bitz, let alone keep any of their veteran unrestricted free agents, or shop for the UFAs who come onto the market Wednesday.

“It’s well documented that I may have to do something,” Chiarelli said. “I don’t think I have to do anything at any point in time (teams can exceed the cap by 10 percent until next season begins), but because there’s so many people in the same city (for the draft), it’s easier to do.”

The Bruins aren’t the only team in this circumstance – there are far more teams close to the anticipated cap than there are teams sitting on a cushion – so Chiarelli has been party to plenty of trade-related conversation as the draft approached.

“I get the sense there’s more activity, conversations and discussions, but I don’t know if that translates to more trades,” he said.

With only three full days between the conclusion of the draft and the start of the free agency period, teams are talking more often and trying to think faster on their feet.

“Generally, you … sit back and think about what took place, and those (trade) discussions at the draft,” Chiarelli said. “From those discussions, you get a sense of where the market’s going to go, then you use the time to think about it and implement some things before July 1.

“(This year) you’ve just got to expedite that a little bit. I’ve tried … to have more conversations than usual before the draft, in part due to the fact that July 1 comes (closer) to the draft than it has in the past.”

If nothing else, the Bruins will return to Boston with prospects – and that’s still the primary reason everyone is heading for Montreal.

“We’ll see how it plays out,” Chiarelli said. “Draft picks now are very sexy, because we’re at the draft.”

Reach Mike Loftus at mloftus@ledger.com. Read more of his Bruins coverage on Blog of Ice at PatriotLedger.com/sports

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